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Post by BRADLEY WYATT DEL ROSA on Jul 1, 2011 5:22:43 GMT -7
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 words // 708 // outfit // far left // tagged // open boy with a coin,
T H E N M A K I N G A W I S H , A N D T O S S E D I N T H E S E A
he felt it was a mark of his character, how much he enjoyed being at the library. after all, he was twenty-three years old. he had a steady career working at home with one of his best friends making a lot of money; he could go out and party if he really wanted to. buy a bunch of beer. have his sister hook him up with some of her hotter friends. live it up. be a man. instead, he spent most of his free time beneath the roof of the glenley library, spending half of his time flipping through children's books to decide what to read when he did volunteer there and the other half of his time flipping through random books from random sections of the library in hopes of finding something that really tickled his fancy. really, in all the years he had lived in glenley, he was surprised that he hadn't read out the library. after all, he never just checked out one book at a time. it was always stacks upon stacks, seven, eight, nine, ten books at a time that he'd return in less than a week in exchange for another stack. yes, he had a serious case of the bookworm blues. but he didn't mind. he loved it.
after all, there was just something so rewarding about opening a book at the beginning of the day and being able to turn the last page by the end of the night. it was just a feeling of complete satisfaction, to know that he went through books like most americans went through big macs. not to say that he thought himself higher than others because of it, but he did think it was part of what made him a good person. he took time for the little things like actual books, libraries, and book readings. he was able to slow down his life for a little while to enjoy a good dickens novel, or even cast away all fear for a moment to enjoy one or two of the brilliant works of stephen king. while his life wasn't necessarily hectic, he believed that being twenty-three and still reading gave him a place to escape when he was feeling overwhelmed. it allowed him to reach into his imagination and daydream up a storm that teenagers nowadays only wish they could access. maybe it was nerdy, dorky, whatever label you wanted to put on it. but bradley loved to read and every opportunity he had to go to the library, he took.
the librarians greeted him by name as he walked through the door - a few asked about luna and tobi, another offered a few book suggestions based on what he was turning in, and yet another asked how his day was. it was normal procedure. he had surpassed the title of "library regular". he practically worked there, knew the place inside and out, and knew every employee well. though most were old ladies, he considered them friends, people he cared about. walking into the library always felt like walking into a friend's house.
he nodded to a few of the librarians in greeting, politely declining on the books being offered to him by claiming he wanted to find something on his own. he was in the mood for something...new. after all, he and tobias had been working late and he had found in their breaks when he was able to read something that he felt...bored almost. he had been reading enough of one genre for far too long, and it was time for a change. but he wasn't quite sure what. tobias had offered up a book to him - never let me go or something like that. but judging by the tears basically pouring down his friend's face after he'd read it, it was a rather sad book and bradley del rosa wasn't in the mood for sadness. he rarely was. he tried thinking back on other book suggestions but the titles seemed to avoid him. he frowned and made his way to the 'fiction' section of the library - he might as well start with that. flip through a few things. he was bound to come across something interesting eventually.
notes // brad's so fun, even when he's just bookworming it up. |
[/td][/tr][/table] TEMPLATE BY KHRISTIAN OF CAUTION 2.0, LYRICS BY IRON & WINE[/center] |
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Post by BROOKLYN LILLY ESTEVEZ on Jul 1, 2011 15:08:00 GMT -7
   even during the summer, brooklyn just wouldn't stop working. classes were out for the summer and since her and her brother were having a hard time making ends meet she took it upon herself to go out and find a summer job. sadly though her hunt so far wasn't working out too great.for the time being though she was locked away in the library, working as a volunteer helping put away books and doing other little odd jobs around the library. she wasn't getting paid for it, but working around the library was better than nothing. at least this way if she did a good job she could put it down on job applications and use it as a reference. at time though it was hard to focus on the task at hand and brooklyn often got distracted while trying to put books back properly. most of the time the only things that were on her mind were the beach and photography. lately though money matters were driving her insane and it made it hard for her to concentrate.
pushing the cart down the various aisles of books, brooklyn bobbed her head from side to side as she listen to the music that was currently playing on her ipod. she was supposed to be putting books back on the self but instead she had found herself stopping every few inches when she came across a book that looked interesting. she hadn't meant to start pulling down books, she just thought that reading books would be more interesting than just putting them back. she often did things like this, pulling down books from shelves when she found something interesting. she was young, only nineteen and had just finished off her first semester in college. she didn't come across many books that she found interesting. every once in a while though she would be strolling through the fiction section and she would find a couple good things to look at. which was where she was now. the cart, which had only carried a couple books when she was first told to put books back on the shelves was now full of various books that she had found when she was supposed to be putting books back.
now she wasn't sure how it happened, hell she didn't even know when it happened, but somehow brooklyn found herself on the floor in the middle of one of the aisles. the small girl brushed her dark hair out of her face and rubbed her head. it was pounding as though someone had came by and hit her over the head with a brick. looking around she hoped no one had seen her and she was sure that no one had, until she saw someone standing at the opposite end of the aisle of course. still on the floor she peeked out from behind the cart to see one of the other library volunteers standing at the opposite end of the aisle flipping through the pages of a book. brooklyn really hoped that he hadn't seen whatever it was that had happened to her. she didn't really know the guy but she had seen him around before, he often read to the children and he was quite good at it. she would often stand behind the shelves and just listen as he read to the children. she wasn't some creepy stalker, she was just often too shy to go up to him and introduce herself. she would much rather prefer to just listen to him read to the children.
straightening herself up she picked up several books that were on the floor and placed them back on the cart. checking her phone she saw a text message from her brother asking her what time she was gonna be home. ignoring the message, she put her phone back into her pocket. she figured that she should probably start doing her job and so she started putting the books back on the shelves. eventually she realized that she would have to make her way down the aisle to where the guy was standing and she immediately got nervous. brooklyn didn't do so well around people that she didn't know. of course since it was a library she didn't really ]have to say anything to him. she could always use the rule of silence to her benefit. making her way down the aisle she was doing just fine stopping every now and then to put back a book or two. she was doing just fine until she got closer to the end of the aisle where the guy was standing, still flipping through the pages of a book. a couple of magazines that were on the cart fell on the floor and before she knew it, she was on her butt holding onto the cart handles way too embarrassed to get back up.
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Post by BRADLEY WYATT DEL ROSA on Jul 1, 2011 15:28:14 GMT -7
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words // 689 // outfit // far left // tagged // brooklyn boy with a coin,
T H E N M A K I N G A W I S H , A N D T O S S E D I N T H E S E A
bradley had never been the most observant guy in the world. he often lost himself in the books he was flipping through, even if he didn't find them particularly interesting. ever since trying to overcome what he could only tell himself was an undiagnosed case of adhd, when he put his mind on one track, it took something strong to get him off of it. well as it turned out, hitting your head and falling in the library is one way to tear him out of his little fantasy world. he wasn't sure how that even happened in a library. all he knew was that one moment he was glancing up quickly to see who had entered the aisle he had slowly made his way down and the next moment he was stifling a laugh and staring pointedly at his book with just the hint of an amused smile because the person who had joined him seemed to be distracted and ended up on the floor. classic. he wasn't going to act as though it had never happened to him, of course (if anything embarrassing ever occurred around him, odds are it had happened to him in the past) but the poor girl just looked so embarrassed that he didn't know whether he should extend a helping hand to her or just ignore that the situation ever happened so that he didn't embarrass her further.
he decided to stick with ignoring. hanging around with his sister growing up had taught him that she was the only girl who could really take his constant teasing, and the last thing he wanted to do was offend a somewhat stranger, especially since she volunteered at the library, too. though as he glanced back over at her again - oh good, he thought, she got back up so she must not be hurt - he was surprised that he wasn't already on a first name basis with her. he made a habit of knowing every volunteer who could ever possibly walk into the library because he figured that if the place felt like home, it made his fellow workers his family. but this girl...he knew that her face was familiar but no name immediately sprung to mind and this he found to be troubling. how could someone volunteer at the library and not know bradley del rosa? it seemed like a problem; maybe she was new in town, which was just as embarrassing as even then he tried to extend a helpful hand to anyone he didn't immediately recognize as a glenley native. so lost was he in his thoughts that he didn't even realize that the girl was nearing him until another one of her falls broke his concentration.
dear god, bradley, please do not laugh. don't even smile. he silently berated himself for wanting to have laughed again at this girl who had fallen on the ground - twice. that wasn't very polite of him, and bradley del rosa always made a point of being polite. as if trying to make up for the thoughts she would never know that he was thinking, he immediately put his book down and walked over to her, squatting down next to her with concern etched in his features. "are you okay?" he asked. he wanted to make a comment, something about slipping and falling twice and it just not being her day, but given the circumstances and the fact that the girl still looked mortified, he refrained. instead he'd play it safe and just make sure she wasn't injured or hurt - teasing was reserved for friends and as he didn't know her name, he couldn't yet consider them friends or part of his library family, as much as it killed him to admit. so instead of making an off comment about knowing where to send her off to if she needed a book on balance, he just voiced further concern in her condition by saying, "you're not hurt, are you? and don't lie to me - i've taken a few nasty falls here myself; i know how hard these floors can be."
notes // haha, awww, poor baby. |
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Post by BROOKLYN LILLY ESTEVEZ on Jul 1, 2011 19:16:44 GMT -7
words couldn't describe how embarrassed brooklyn was at the moment. it was bad enough that she had fell on her ass once already, but a second time was beyond even her clumsy self. the fact that she would have to see this person in front of her probably everyday just seemed to make things even worse for her. normally brooklyn would have just gotten up and kept on moving, she was just one of those girls that liked to pretend that nothing bad had happened. for some reason though she just couldn't bring herself to move. the poor girl was traumatized. she got even more traumatized when he started walking towards her. oh god he's coming over here. he's probably gonna laugh at me and he's probably wondering who the hell i am and oh god. she just couldn't help but sit there and be embarrassed. brushing her hair out of her face she couldn't bring herself to look up. "who me? yeah i'm fine. don't worry about it." distracting herself by picking up the magazines off the floor and putting them back on the cart she wiggled around on the floor until she was leaning back against the book shelf.
brooklyn really wished that she could disappear but since she wasn't a superhero, an x-men, nor did she have an invisibility cloak like in harry potter she knew that wasn't happening. she really didn't know what to make of this guy though. he wasn't laughing at her and he wasn't trying to undress her with his eyes. it was weird to have some random guy just be nice to her. her hair had fallen over her face again. peeking at him from behind the curtain of her long dark hair, she figured that he was harmless, at least for now. "well, i'm pretty sure my ass is gonna be bruised in the morning, my confidence is shattered and i'm embarrassed beyond belief but i think i'll be ok." she would have to make a mental note about trying to stay a little more focused when she was working. either that or ask to never have to put books back ever again unless they were children books. children books were always easy to put back. there wasn't much to distract her in that section. sighing she finally lifted her head and looked up at the person who had been so kind to her. "well this is embarrassing. hi, my name is brooklyn." she wasn't sure just yet if she'd regret telling him her name or not. for now though she saw no reason why not. maybe she would make a friend after this whole little mess was over.
straightening herself up she figured that it was time for her to stop sitting on the ground and to get back to work. she wanted to get to know this guy a little bit better though since she was gonna be seeing him often. "so have you really fallen around here before or were you just saying that to make me feel better?" not that she was wishing for him to fall or anything. brooklyn was just a curious child. her brother said that one day she'd ask a question that she didn't wanna know the answer to but for now all the answers she had gotten had been fine with her. feeling her phone vibrate in her pocket again she quickly pulled it out and pressed ignore when she saw her brother's name flash across the screen. she was in no mood to hear him complain about how there was no food in the house. that was the only time when he called her for the most part. if it was anything else he would just text her. she made a mental note to grab something for the both of them to eat before she went home. she didn't have much cash on her but she was pretty sure she could afford something decent for them to eat. "do you by any chance wanna help me put some of these books back? i hate doing this job alone." which was the truth but it was also an excuse for her to get to know him just a little bit more. she figured it was ok for her to come out of her shell a bit, but the minute that she sensed something bad she would shut herself off again.
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Post by BRADLEY WYATT DEL ROSA on Jul 1, 2011 21:52:55 GMT -7
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words // 956 // outfit // far left // tagged // brooklyn boy with a coin,
T H E N M A K I N G A W I S H , A N D T O S S E D I N T H E S E A
despite the fact the girl said that she was fine, brad remained concerned. call it the older brother in him or maybe just his sense of protectiveness over all things female, but he wanted to be sure that this girl was one hundred percent all right before he even considered walking away. he wasn't sure what really could go wrong from simply falling on your ass a couple of times - could she have fractured her spinal column or something somehow? was there any way at all that she could die from this? - but he wasn't going to walk away and leave it to chance that something bad did happen. however at her words - "well, i'm pretty sure my ass is gonna be bruised in the morning, my confidence is shattered and i'm embarrassed beyond belief but i think i'll be ok" - he smiled, life moving on when he realized that she had not indeed shattered her spinal column but her ego. and a shattered ego was easily prepared - he rebuilt his all the time whenever someone told him to shut up, which was something that happened a lot more often that he would really prefer. but before he could get distracted once more by his thoughts, the girl was introducing herself and he had to strain his mind in order to listen quickly enough to catch her name. brooklyn. "hey brooklyn," he said, grin widening. "i'm brad. and don't worry about it - it's not that embarrassing. i bet every person in this library has taken worse dives than that in public."
his worries about her overall health disappeared completely when she stood up - if she could stand, then she really didn't need him. however, before he could turn to leave or even think about doing something else, she was asking him about whether or not he had ever truly fallen inside the library. he stood up himself all the way, laughing as he placed a hand on his neck in embarrassment. the sad part about it was that brad had probably fallen in every public place he had ever entered - and even most of the private ones. he had never been really coordinated, and he preferred sitting on his ass coding with tobi to doing anything even remotely like walking. not to mention, with his short attention span he couldn't even count the amount of doors, walls, poles, and pillars he had run into over the years. to be quite honest, he was probably better off doing what he was doing before all the time - just standing in one spot while he thought about something, rather than trying to walk, talk, and think all at the same time. his mind didn't have that many pathways - he wasn't a miracle worker. he ran into stuff when he was distracted. "embarrassing as it is because of how long i've lived here," he said, "i really have fallen in here a few times. i'm going to blame it on slanted floors, though. totally not my fault."
he wondered if brooklyn knew what she was getting herself into, engaging him in conversation and asking her to stay like she did. that was basically the biggest invitation to become as cozy as he usually was around people. though he wouldn't necessarily describe himself as particularly loud or obnoxious (especially in a library, god forbid) other people would have to say otherwise. he had a habit of just trying to turn every moment into a moment to make someone laugh, and while he knew the girl probably wanted to laugh at someone other than herself it still made him wonder how people must perceive him the first time they meet him if they don't immediately hide and try to get away from him at the first chance. however, he wasn't about to warn her (what was he going to say? hey sorry we just met but i'm actually really charming and funny and nice so we shouldn't be friends?) and when she extended the invitation to help her finish her job, he lit up. he loved working there, and even if he wasn't technically working that day, he didn't find that reason enough to walk away from a perfectly good chance to show exactly how well he knew the library.
"what kind of guy would i be if i left a damsel in distress alone to do such hard labor on her own?" he joked, moving toward the cart and picking up a book. "i'd be honored to help. most of these are probably only here because i was the one who checked them out in the first place, so i should clean up my own mess." this much was true - looking over the cover of the books on the cart, he noticed that quite a few looked familiar and characters, plots, writing styles, and schemes all flashed through his mind in an instant. he smiled and then set to work putting a few books on the shelf where they belonged (paying particular attention not just to arranging them alphabetically but moving a few others around so that his view of the numbers on the side of the books wasn't completely messed up. he hated when people messed up the dewey decimal system by putting random books here or there and always made an effort to right their wrongs). as he worked on putting more books up, he turned to look at brooklyn. "so how long have you been volunteering here?" he asked, genuinely curious. "i've just never seen you around before, which is saying a lot. i try to go out of my way to meet the other volunteers here."
notes // they're going to be such fun friends! |
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Post by BROOKLYN LILLY ESTEVEZ on Jul 6, 2011 20:50:23 GMT -7
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UNDER A PAPER MOON*
brooklyn couldn't help but smile. it was so rare that she met a guy who didn't immediately try to hit on her. she was glad at the change and actually hoped that it wouldn't be the first time that she met a guy who wasn't a total jerk. even still though she was a bit on edge, something about the whole situation seemed too good to be true. her guard was up but not as much as it normally was. she breathed a sigh of relief when all he said was hey brooklyn. "oh thank god. you might just be the first person who hasn't quoted back all time low lyrics when i introduced myself." it got annoying when people quoted back lyrics to hello brooklyn as soon as they found out her name. "i'm pretty sure people have quoted that song back to me about a million times over since the song came out. my brother sings it to me all the time." she said as a small giggle escaped her lips. "it's nice to meet you brad. i highly doubt that anyone has been more embarrassed than i am right now though. i think i'm way too accident prone for my own good." which was actually very true, the small girl had never been really very coordinated.
leaning against a bookcase, but still being careful so that she didn't knock anything over, brooklyn untangled her headphones that had gotten stuck all in her necklaces that were hanging around her neck before shoving the headphones into her pocket. she knew it wasn't nice to laugh but she really couldn't help but let out a little giggle when bradley said that he had fallen in the library before. it was a small giggle though and she was pretty sure that he didn't hear it since she tried to keep it to herself. "can i use that excuse too then? there should be like a warning sign outside the library." she was feeling a little bit less embarrassed about her fall. brooklyn was at that stage where she realized that it was okay to laugh at herself a little bit. she was actually quite proud of herself. it normally took her longer to get to that stage after she embarrassed herself in front of someone. she couldn't even do something embarrassing around her brother without acting completely awkward around him for a while. "they really should fix the floors though. i mean we could totally fake an injury and sue."
brooklyn couldn't help but make a face when bradley called her a damsel in distress. she wasn't about to make a big deal out of it though. she really didn't see any need to. "woahwoahwoah. just cause i fell twice within a matter of minutes doesn't mean that i'm a damsel in distress." she said with a smile. "it just means that i'm a damsel with a crap center of gravity." grabbing a couple of books she leaned up on her toes to put them back up on one of the higher shelves. sometimes she hated being so small, like now for instance. it was a good thing though that bradley had decided to stay with her and help her put the books back. she was in no mood to run and grab one of the small step ladders from the back. the last thing she needed was too fall off that as well. "i actually think most of these books are on here because of me. i spent more time taking books off the shelves when i should have been putting them back." she couldn't really help that though. it was a bit of a bad habit that she had. instead of putting books back she would pull them off and skim through them while she would work. in the end all she really did was give herself more work or leave behind work for whoever came in after her.
leaning on the cart she watched bradley for a minute as he put books back on the shelves careful to make sure that they were in the right order according to the decimal system. brooklyn remembered when she first started working at the library at the volunteer. she had very little patience for the decimal system and would just stick books where ever she pleased. eventually she realized the importance of it and started following the system. she often found herself reverting to her old ways though whenever she was frustrated. grabbing a couple more books she put them back on the shelf and turned back around when she heard bradley speak again. "umm, i've been working around here since the summer started. i've been trying to find a job that actually pays but so far i've got no luck." she didn't mind volunteering her time for free at the library, she spent so much time there already that she figured she might as well make herself useful and help out whenever she could. "no one ever really sees me cause i sort of make it a habit to not be seen. i'm not exactly a social butterfly." she couldn't help but feel slightly embarrassed again. she was nineteen years old and often still acted as though she was nine years old. she couldn't help it though. brooklyn had always been a shy girl. "what about you? how long have you been volunteering around here?"
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